In the past, alcohol has been used as a treatment for infection, as an anesthetic, and as a sedative. Alcohol is known as a pain suppressant and was used for hundreds of years for treating people with injuries and for those needing surgery. Alcohol was used to treat typhus as recently as the 1920s. Research in the 1990s showed that moderate amounts of alcohol could help reduce the risk of heart attacks but, conversely, alcohol abuse has been connected to heart disease. Today, there are no known therapeutic uses for alcohol.